1968 - Blue Cheer (referred to as being "louder than god") release their debut album, Vincebus Eruptum. Considered a high-water mark of psychedelic music, it's also a formative influence on the heavy metal genre. From the opening rampage through Eddie Cochran's "Summertime Blues" (which miraculously became a hit single), to the final one-two punch of "Parchment Farm" and "Second Time Around," Vincebus Eruptum is a glorious celebration of rock & roll primitivism run through enough Marshall amps to deafen an army.
1980 - Paul McCartney was jailed for nine days in Tokyo for marijuana possession after being found with about a half a pound on his arrival at Narita Airport in Japan. McCartney said in 2004, We were about to fly to Japan and I knew I wouldn’t be able to get anything to smoke over there. This stuff was too good to flush down the toilet, so I thought I’d take it with me.”
1988 - Tina Turner performed at Estadio do Maracana in Rio de Janeiro to a sold-out crowd of 180,000, setting a new record for attendance at a performance by a solo artist.
1992 - Eric Clapton recorded Eric Clapton Unplugged for MTV.
Clapton performed the show in front of a small audience at Bray Film Studios in Windsor, England.
Shortly after telling the studio audience "that's it," Clapton said they needed to do "two – no, three - no, five" songs over again, adding "if you don't mind, I don't mind." That led to an impromptu "Rollin' and Tumblin'". The seasoned musicians quickly picked up on it and the crowd clapped along. The director signaled the crew to record, which is why there is such an abrupt start to the song mid-verse. Clapton was so pleased with it that when the song ended, he asked the director, "did you get that?"
1996 - Jamaican authorities opened fire on Jimmy Buffett's seaplane, mistaking it for a drug trafficker's plane. U2 singer Bono his family, and Island Records founder, Chris Blackwell were also on the plane.
"It was absolutely terrifying and I honestly thought we were all going to die," Bono says.
Buffett, an avid pilot, had just landed at an airport in Negril, Jamaica when a sudden burst of shots rang out, according to one of Buffett’s Margaritaville websites.
“We flew the plane in, got off, and as the plane took off to go get fuel, we were surrounded by a Jamaican S.W.A.T. team,” Buffett said in a 1996 Rolling Stone interview. “I thought it was a joke until I heard the gunfire.”
Later that year, Buffett released his album “Banana Wind,” in which he recounts the story on “Jamaica Mistaica”:
"Just about to lose my temper as I endeavored to explain
We had only come for chicken we were not a ganja plane"
Birthdays:
Jill Sobule was born in Denver, and turns 65 today. Her 1995 self-titled album (Atlantic) brought her mainstream commercial and critical success with two hit singles: the satirical gem “Supermodel” from the movie Clueless and “I Kissed A Girl” (the original), the first ever openly queer-themed Billboard Top 20 record.
Helen Folasade Adu, AKA as Sade (pronounced Shahr-day) is 65. She's known for producing a shrewd synthesis of classic jazz, cutting-edge R&B, and mature pop. Although famous for stylishly seductive ballads, including the international hits "Smooth Operator", "The Sweetest Taboo", "and No Ordinary Love" she's also recorded poignant songs regarding slavery, immigration, parenthood out of wedlock, and everyday struggles. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
R.I.P.:
Disgraced record producer Phil Spector died on this day in 2021. Strictly speaking, Phil Spector wasn't even a performer -- he was a musician, but he very rarely released records under his name. As a producer, however -- and, to a significant extent, songwriter, label owner, and session player -- he influenced the course of rock & roll more than all but a handful of performers. The Wall of Sound that he perfected in the early '60s led to unlimited possibilities for arrangements and sound construction in rock and pop, and his brilliant talents imprinted the discs that he produced with an artistic vision that was much more attributable to him than to the talented performers with whom he worked.
After the early 70s, he was active only sporadically, producing isolated albums by Dion, Leonard Cohen, and the Ramones while he mostly lived in seclusion. This changed in 2003 with the death of Lana Clarkson, who was shot and killed in Spector’s home. It took four years for the case to go to trial, the first of which resulted in a mistrial, and the second of which found Spector guilty of murder in the second degree. He was sentenced to 19 years to life in the California state prison system. Spector was still behind bars when he died at the age of 81.
On This Day In Music History was sourced, copied, pasted, edited, and occasionally woven together with my own crude prose, from This Day in Music, Country Living, New York Times, History Channel, Jill Sobule website , Song Facts, Allmusic and Wikipedia.
KBCO